Nature's Building Blocks

• Well known author. Emsley's critically acclaimed The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide won the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize in 1995. His other books include Molecules at an Exhibition, Was It Something You Ate? and The Elements.
• A readable and entertaining guide to the 100 or so building blocks of ourselves, the earth and the universe.
• Doubles as both an accessible reference source and an enjoyable and fascinating 'dip into' read about the elements regularly cited in the news, whether in the context of the environment, our diet, or the world around us.
• '...a marvel - encyclopedic in scope, but so full of enthusiasm, so engagingly written, that one can open it at any point and read for sheer delight. While everything that one might expect and hope for is here - the history and mineralogy and manufacture of each element, its economic roles and uses, its place in our environment, our foods, our bodies - there is, in addition, an "element of surprise" for each element - an idiosyncratic piece of information, sometimes comic, sometimes terrifying, but always startling and novel. I have read and possess many books on the Elements, but it is Dr. Emsley's new book which will now sit next to me on my desk.' (Oliver Sacks)

Contents

• List of elements and numbers
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• The Elements
• The History of the Periodic Table
• Appendix: The discovery of the elements in chronological order
• Bibliography